Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Prototype of Theresa May's New UK Nuclear Plant Blows Up

ENENews reports that a "massive blast" ripped through the Flamanville nuclear plant currently under construction in France, and that “Smoke billowed from the building as an explosion led to massive fire.” The incident, an expert is quoted as saying, is“very serious” and that “a number of people have been left feeling unwell.” However, according to Olivier Marmion, director of the prefect's office, the incident "does not constitute a nuclear accident."

One of thousands of barrels of nuclear waste strewn across the floor of the English Channel.Image source.

The Flamanville plant is located on France's Cotentin Peninsula, which projects into the already quite radioactive English Channel, just three miles from the island of Alderney, the nearest of the British Channel Islands.

The power plant houses two previously constructed pressurized water reactors (PWRs), plus a new reactor, the EPR (Flamanville 3), which began construction in 2006.

Wikipedia states that: "As of July 2016, the EPR reactor, which is supposed to be safer than any previous reactor (is safer than Fukushima, safe enough?), was "three times over budget and years behind schedule. Various safety problems have been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor."

Reactors of the same type being constructed in Finland and China have also experienced massive construction delays.

Notwithstanding these warning signs or the fact that the project is massively uneconomic, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, in virtually her first decision as Prime Minister, approved construction of two EPR reactors in Britain, these to be located just up wind of the Cities of Bristol, Oxford and London.

The accident in France underlines the imbecility, if not criminality, of Prime Minister May's decision to approve the Hinkley Point C reactor which will be both an existential threat to England's most densely populated region and an economic disaster. That decision should be revoked now.